


A Year Without You

by Shiropropaganda



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Confessions, Fix It Fic, M/M, Mentions of Character Death, Post Season 8, shiro is bad at technology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 02:38:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17013996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shiropropaganda/pseuds/Shiropropaganda
Summary: Shiro tries to make things right.Keith does it for him.





	A Year Without You

**Author's Note:**

> MAJOR SPOILERS FOR SEASON 8  
> Takes place in a canon where the series ended as the lions flew away, before those credit scenes.

A year.

A year passes between opportunities for the team to meet. Video calls and messages are made almost daily, the group chat pings constantly making Veronica sigh and Coran lean over his shoulder to read messages despite the fact that he could look at his own holophone.

Shiro rolls his eyes and nudges the older man out of his space as he pulls up the coordinates for the anniversary celebration. Coordinates none of them don’t really need, he’s convinced he could pilot ATLAS to New Altea in his sleep.

Lance is the first face they see when they land, and Veronica all but flings herself at her brother--unwilling to surrender his attention to anyone else-- while Shiro’s eyes sweep around the welcoming crowd, searching for familiar faces. Pidge and Matt call out to him, and he’s swept up in a Holt family hug.

“Hunk’s already inside,” Pidge informs him, tugging on his arm, “Lance has to finish some stuff but he’ll join us later.”

Shiro hesitates, and then his tech sends another sensation of pulling to his brain.

“He’s not here yet,” Matt says, a smirk on his face.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Shiro replies.

The Holts share a look he’s unwilling to acknowledge and he follows them up the path, and if his eyes flick skyward for most of the walk, they don’t mention it.

  
  
  


Keith arrives while Shiro is elbows deep in some dough Hunk asked him to kneed. 

Unfortunately, Hunk didn’t mention that the yeast in the dough was of an aggressively clingy strain, so he is scraping the substance from his arms as it tries to creep up when Keith clears his throat.

Shiro’s stomach drops when he looks up because Keith leaning in the doorway wearing a new uniform and he looks… he looks  _ good. _

“You’ve got something on your…” Keith steps into the room and picks some wriggling dough off Shiro’s shoulder.

“Glad you made it,” he replies weakly.

Keith bites at his lip, looking like he wants to talk, and Shiro can’t stop his brows from drawing in concern.

"Shiro, I…”

Hunk bursts through the door a breath later, splashing Shiro’s torso with something that smells like a soft fusion of lavender and lime, and the rest of the dough drops to the floor as if it had never begun a steady creep up Shiro’s bicep to begin with.

“Sorry, man,” he pants, “Romelle forgot to add the-- oh.”

His eyes bounce between Shiro and Keith before he steps back.

“Sorry, I’ll um, yeah.” 

“Hunk,” Keith says suddenly, “can you show me where my room is? I want to change.”

There’s a tension in the kitchen that Shiro wishes he could release somehow, and Hunk’s expression tells him he isn’t the only one aware.

Keith gives him a small smile and an awkward sort of wave before he leaves without another word.

  
  


The truth is, Shiro isn’t sure how to talk to Keith anymore.

Not since the first Altean RoBeast, since ATLAS started sharing his brain space.

Not since Shiro found himself so busy and in-demand during the reconstruction that he never got a chance to visit Keith in the hospital while he was awake. He spent time in the dark at his bedside, doing reports, but he was kicked out more than once by the nursing staff or was called off to attend to other things while the other man was still asleep. Before that day, he’d had the distinct feeling that their friendship was on the cusp of something, tilting forward into new territory, but after… it felt like he’d stumbled backwards into a reality where he and Keith barely spoke about things other than battle strategy.

Shiro had promised himself they’d talk after the war was won, but he’d frozen when Keith announced his intentions to return to Daibazaal with the Blades and Acxa.

He has a holophone draft-log full to capacity of messages he’d written, scripts of what he wanted to say to Keith--

_ I miss you.  
_ _ Come see me.  _ _ Let me come to you.  
_ __ I love you.

\--and now that he’s  _ here _ ... he finds himself at a loss.

  
  
  


Atlas is too big to dock in the castle’s hangar, so the only clothes Shiro has to dress in that aren’t covered with dough are his Admiral uniform or his pajamas. He feels stiff and awkward sitting at the table in his uniform while the team is dressed down. Keith had his old red jacket upcycled and it suits him better than his blades uniform did. It’s difficult to ask about Diabazaal, difficult to hear how much Keith has done in the year away from them, but he’s proud. He’s so proud that his heart swells. His fingers itch to reach out to him, to hold his wrist or his shoulder, but Keith seems so happy with his mission now that he forces himself to wrap his fingers around his fork instead.

It feels good to be with the team again, feels right to be sitting with them. There is a heavy gap where Allura should be, a burden on his heart to think of how she’d sacrificed and he hadn’t been able to offer an alternative solution. His eyes go blurry with emotion for a moment and he blinks hard.

“Need glasses, old timer?” Keith asks softly, a small smile tilting his mouth.

“Probably,” he admits, “but I was just thinking about how proud she’d be of all of you.”

They all look up at the statue for a long time, and no one says a word.

  
  


 

Keith lingers at his door as they all head up to bed. His room is across from Shiro’s, and he swallows thickly as the younger man turns and pins him with a look.

"Are you okay?” he asks, leaning back against his door, arms crossed and brows raised.

_ I miss you.  
_ _ Come see me.  _ _ Let me come to you.  
I _ __  love you.

“Just tired,” Shiro replies, hand scratching at the back of his head.

Keith’s eyes are soft as he studies the dark circles under his eyes. His hand moves as if to touch, but falls to his side instead.

“Sleep,” he says softly, “you need it.”

  
  


He doesn’t sleep.

Instead he flicks through the drafts of his holophone, reading the words he’d written to Keith over and over again. He brushes his thumb over the delete key, and closes his eyes.

The lion’s roar comes later.

  
  


Keith is already at his door when he bursts through it, and together they skid down the cool stone corridors with bare feet until they reach the place the others have gathered.

He feels loss like he hasn’t allowed himself since he crash landed back on earth all those years ago. Keith is close enough to touch but he can’t make his arm reach. The lions’ roars echo in Shiro’s ears as the cold concrete freezes his toes, and he grieves. His heart is heavy as he watches the lions fly into the night.

They stay like that, all in a row on the stairs before the giant tribute to Allura, and no one speaks. Shiro knows their eyes are just as wet as his own.

After a while, Lance sniffs loudly and turns, and before Shiro can recall deciding to move, the five of them collapse like an imploding star into one another's’ arms. They hold each other and cry, and then somewhere along the way they begin to laugh-- Shiro’s heart is full and the world rights itself.

Keith stays close to his side as the walk back, their knuckles brush against each other’s but Shiro doesn’t want to pull away. They stop again, outside their room, and this time, Keith doesn’t step back to his own door.

He holds Shiro’s gaze for a long moment, and when the door whooshes open, they step inside together.

Keith turns and holds his elbow, looking up at Shiro with a piercing look that the older man hasn’t seen since he was young and vulnerable, about to take a terrifying leap out of his comfort zone.

“Did you mean it?” Keith asks, brows drawn in, and lower lip trembling.

“Mean what, exactly?” Shiro asks, making a conscious effort to keep his eyes trained on Keith.

Keith huffs out a sharp breath and digs his holophone from the pocket of his sweats, passing it to Shiro. The older man’s eyes widen and his stomach lurches as he sees the messages. All three hundred and sixty five of them, received and marked as read in Keith’s inbox. The messages he must have sent, instead of erased.

He doesn’t have to read them in their entirety, Shiro knows the words he wrote by heart. His hand begins to shake so violently, the holophone clatters to the floor.

“I’m sorry, Keith,” he says quietly, “I never meant for you to see those.”

“Why not?” the younger man’s voice is sharp and angry and devastated all at once, “Why wouldn’t you tell me this? Why didn’t you say something?”

Keith’s eyes are fire, his body so tense he seems about to snap and all Shiro wants is to gather him close, to press his fingers into muscle until the younger man melts in his arms. It’s an effort to hold himself still, to keep his distance.

“ _ Takashi. _ ” Keith is pleadingly sweet and it makes the excuses tumble from his lips.

“I didn’t want to be what was keeping you from Diabazaal, from Krolia or the Blades, you wanted to go, so I needed to let you go.”

The words sound stupid as soon as they leave his mouth. This is  _ Keith _ , Keith who tore through the universe to find him, who stepped in to save him time after time. Keith who is standing here in his pajamas with bare feet, who is the only person in the universe who could out-stubborn himself. His excuse falls flat, and all that’s left now is the most terrifying admission of truth.

He meets Keith’s eyes, and whispers, “I was scared.”

He doesn’t expect Keith to fall into his arms and dramatically profess his devotion, and he doesn’t.  
He  _ barrels _ .

The air whooshes from his lungs as Shiro’s back slams against the metal door, but Keith’s face is buried in his neck, and a fist bumps softly against his chest.

Shiro melts.

His face is buried in soft hair as his arms come up around the younger man’s waist.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes.

He nudges the younger man’s chin with his hand, meeting his eyes.

“I love you,” he says quietly, and Keith leans up on his toes as he pulls him into kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> This season was such a disappointing end, with so many of our beloved characters acting OOC. This is a small attempt to make myself feel better.
> 
> I will write more post 8 fic, but only in a canon where the series ended as the lions flew off.


End file.
